Imaginary Life

cover art by Howard Vachel Brown

About 2 years ago I mentioned the October 1936 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. One of the stories in that issue was "Liquid Life" by Ralph Farley (real name: Roger Sherman Hoar). It is fun to imagine the influence that stories such as "Liquid Life" might have had on the young Isaac Asimov.

Here is a line from "Liquid Life":

"A filterable virus is a living liquid."

This blunt statement is made by Hans Schmidt, a "bio-chemist" working in Boston at the laboratory of John Dee Service, Inc. Eventually, Asimov became a biochemist who worked in Boston. It is no surprise that Farley set this story in New England; that is where he was born and went to school.

Sites for early life? (image source)

The "filterable virus" sample that Schmidt studies was collected from Salt Pond, located somewhere in the hill country of New Hampshire's White Mountains. Strangely, the little pond contains salt water with an ionic composition that is very similar to that of the ocean. Until recently this pond had been stocked with sea creatures (eels, crabs, muscles) by the wealthy patron of Jack Dee, a millionaire named Metcalf. However, the pond is now devoid of all macroscopic life and Metcalf wants help figuring out what is going on. The pond's waters now behave like acid, causing burn-like damage to human skin. When Jack Dee collects samples of the water in glass bottles, he is careful not to get any of the liquid on his skin.

Back at the lab, chemist Jack Dee announces to his lab mates (including Schmidt and Ivan Zenoff, a biologist) that the water in Salt Pond is not acidic. Although he had been warned and knows that he should to take precautions when handling the pond water, Jack still ends up with a burn-like wound on his hand.

In "Liquid Life", Zenoff states authoritatively, "Life originated in the sea." (however, see this) Here in 2018, the origin of life is still mysterious. Three popular hypotheses are 1) life originated on some other planet (maybe Mars) and was brought to Earth (panspermia), 2) life arose from the chemistry of the deep ocean floor and 3) life began on land, maybe in some "warm little pond".

Top: electron microscopy
bottom: structural model

In the 1930s, it was known that invisibly small viruses could pass right through small-pore filters that would trap bacteria. Some viruses are tiny bacteriophage that can infect and kill bacteria. However, it was not until the 1940s that electron microscopy revealed the structure of a bacteriophage.

We now know that a bacteriophage is just one example of the many different types of viruses. A bacteriophage is a subcellular molecular complex of protein and nucleic acid. Unable to function as a complete living organism, a virus must insert its nucleic acid into a living cell and make use of the cell's systems for replicating nucleic acids and making new proteins in order to make more copies of the virus. However, in 1936 the molecular structure of a filterable virus was still unknown to Earthly science and many biologists thought that nucleic acids were too simple to serve as the genetic molecule of living cells. Farley had apparently read about the ability of bacteriophage to lyse and "dissolve" bacteria, so his imaginary creature from Salt Pond does the same to a cat!

image source

In "Liquid Life", Zenoff the biologist (apparently an electrophysiologist) works with cats. After placing an array of electrodes into the brain of a cat, Zenoff could feed the recorded neuronal impulses taking place in the auditory processing center of the brain to a speaker, allowing him the listen to the audio signal that had been picked up by the cat's ears and processed by its neural networks. In "Liquid Life", one of his cats licks up some of the Salt Pond water and within minutes the cat is reduced to a puddle of liquid. Zenoff hooks up his electrophysiology equipment to the liquified remains of the cat and soon he is able to carry on a conversation with the "liquid life"!

Zenoff's experiment for listening in on a brain (as depicted by Farley in "Liquid Life") was ahead of Earthly science as it existed in 1936. However, by the end of that century, neurobiologists were able to perform computer-aided processing of signals recorded from living brain tissue that had been implanted with an array of micro-electrodes (see the image to the left).

At first, the bucket of "liquid life" (the liquefied cat) seems to only repeat back words that it has heard the three scientists speak. (How a bucket full of liquid can hear and think is never explained.) Then, just when Zenoff states that the "liquid life" has a "low order intelligence", the "liquid life" says:

image source

"Fellows, it is you who have low order of intelligence. You, not I."

After a good night's sleep, Zenoff is ready to conclude, "We have discovered a new type of mind!"

Soon the "liquid mind" is proving itself to be very clever, and it helps immensely with the consulting business of John Dee Service, Inc.

cover art by Bill Botten

The rest of the story degenerates into rather standard super-science story silliness. We are told that this highly intelligent "liquid life" arose spontaneously and then in a few months ran its course, eventually dying out.

In 1935, it had been shown that a virus had a definite chemical structure and could form crystals. It would be interesting to know what a non-scientist like Farley imagined was in his "living liquid".

image source

30 years later, after the space race, the same basic plot from "Liquid Life" was played out in The Andromeda Strain. Of course, by the time when Michael Crichton wrote his story, too much was known about viruses, so he could not call his alien invader from outer-space a virus.

By the 1990s, nanites were common ultra-small components of alien artificial life forms in many science fiction stories.

For the Exode Saga, I imagine even smaller forms of artificial alien life that are composed of femtobots and zeptites.

image source

What about stories like Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer? Do writers of fantasy and horror stories ever have coherent thoughts about nanotechnology or other possible explanations for their fantasy plot elements?

SIHA Nomination
I'm nominating the film Annihilation for the 2018 SIHA award. Could the events in the movie Annihilation be accounted for by an alien life form that is composed of nanites?

Alien Search: SIHA 2018

Next: a timeline of events in the Asimov Reality

Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers.